


Live Long and Pros-Purr

by stateofintegrity



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Enterprise crew acquires a cat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The silliness of this premise may be partially blamed on the Spock-with-cat meme and partially on the works of P.A. Morris, read while I was researching Victorian taxidermy.

It was an incredibly rare thing for Dr. Leonard McCoy to cross the threshold of Spock’s chamber. He didn’t know how the green-blooded bastard did it, but despite being issued standard command quarters, Spock seemed to occupy a completely foreign territory. Maybe it was the way he’d changed the atmospheric settings to mimic the red light of Vulcan’s fierce sun. Or maybe the scents threw McCoy: the spice-sharp smell of incense, that vanilla-passed-through-blue-flame smell that was simply Spock.

Whatever the reason, the back of McCoy’s neck always began to prickle right outside the Science Officer’s door where he now stood, hesitating. The insular Vulcan wouldn’t welcome the intrusion, but all of his requests for Spock to come to sickbay had been ignored. Following the events on Vulcan, Spock had shown a gift for defying his medical expertise; that defiance made McCoy think that he was hiding something, made him fear that the aborted blood fever might return, or that its sudden dissipation might have long-lasting effects that Spock had not revealed. The emotional effects of being more-or-less left at the altar were a concern, too, but he knew Spock would not confide in him.

Cursing his pointy-eared friend for his stubbornness, he raised his hand to the door and rapped against it. “Spock?” Relief surged through him when the Vulcan deigned to answer. He looked healthy enough; there were no green spots high in his cheekbones; his eyes were clear and dark, his breathing measured.

“Doctor, I can assure you that these latest scans are quite unnecessary.”

Bullying his way inside, Bones gave him a sharp look. “And when Star Fleet certifies you as a medical officer with the knowledge and ability to treat a half-human Vulcan, I’ll take your word for it.” He waved Spock toward a chair and then stopped, startled. Fierce, golden eyes ringed with black were regarding him over a tawny muzzle opened to expose very sharp, very curved, and very pale teeth. Attempting to downplay his reaction, he borrowed a Vulcan mannerism and lifted one eyebrow in question. “Some new form of decorating, Spock?”

McCoy sensed an inner sigh that Spock would never vocalize – and something else just under the surface. A sheepishness? Was it un-Vulcan, somehow, to show preference for one object over another? The doctor wracked his brain trying to conjure an image of a Vulcan home. Surely personal preference was permitted within one’s own quarters!

“You are correct in surmising that it was once a decoration, doctor. However, I have not displayed it here for that purpose. I merely… recovered it.”

McCoy was still staring at the great, dead beast – its body posed, its fur glistening under the red lights. It was a Terran specimen from the nineteenth or early twentieth century: a mountain lion. The eyes, though glass, seemed to hold the light – seemed alive. Like most Terrans, McCoy considered taxidermy a primitive art; it was far easier, cleaner, and humane to simply display holo-mounts or three dimensional liquid crystal images. “Recovered from who?” he finally asked. _And why_?

Long, light-catching Vulcan fingers pointed, indicated a small, golden plaque secured to the rocky, sandy base on which the great, golden cat was posed. “Kirk 2140,” McCoy read. “As in _our_ Kirk?”

“His great-grandfather, I believe. Due to his youth and his achievements during this mission, a cult of celebrity has formed around our captain in recent months. Some entrepreneurial-minded individuals have taken it upon themselves to auction off items which they claim are  connected to Captain Kirk or to his family. When I determined that this piece was authentic, I acquired it with the intention of returning it to the captain.”

_Purchase_ d, McCoy filled in. Your hard earned pay to protect him from vultures that would make money off of him. Which means… what? That you’ve been researching him? Receiving communications about these sales? The doctor’s neural networks lit up like the Enterprise’s engineering panels during a red alert. _Spock_ …

Straining to keep a smile from his face and hoping that his suddenly over-bright eyes wouldn’t give him away, he searched the Vulcan’s expressionless face. “Does he know?”

“There has not been adequate time to inform him. Our recent voyages…”

_Vulcans don’t trail off_ , McCoy thought. You’re dissembling, Spock. You didn’t tell him because some buried part of you is afraid of giving yourself away. It’s not just this big old beasty that our intrepid Captain doesn’t know about! Southern drawl coming out in his excitement he said, “Well, I’d be pleased as Punch to tell him for you, Spock, if you’d like.”

A Vulcan eyebrow shot up, black and stark as the wings of a crow against a winter sky. “Doctor, I can conceive of no universe in which a sweetened fruit beverage would experience pleasure, but you may inform the Captain if you like. I would welcome the opportunity to restore his property to him.”

McCoy might have told him that the expression concerned a nineteenth-century puppet show and not the drink, but he decided that he didn’t want the aggravation of explaining only to be informed that he was being illogical in his choice of phrasing. Instead, he turned to the golden cat that he was quite certain was standing in for a golden-haired captain. “Look at this.” He traced over the beast’s ribs, indicating a scar. “He was a scrapper.”

“I assume you are referring to an affinity for combat,” the Vulcan returned in that cool, formal tone of his. “There is also a notch in the left ear and a long mark low on the neck. He survived many attacks before succumbing to a human adversary.”

McCoy was barely listening. _Those hands of his… I can hardly believe it_! Spock, the least sensual creature aboard the Enterprise (and that, to McCoy’s mind, included the plants growing in the botany labs and the microorganisms dividing and colonizing slides in the micro-bio labs) was stroking across the mountain lion’s soft fur, taking clear pleasure in the texture. As a physician, he found himself wanting to prolong this phenomenon. As Spock’s friend and a champion of the human parts of him, he believed that it could do nothing but good. In the spirit of those beliefs, he dredged up every fact he could think of or make up to keep Spock talking – and touching. Caught up in the conversation, Spock seemed completely unaware of the actions of his hands as they smoothed over the lean, muscled body, as they petted the soft ruff around the cat’s cheeks.

A sharp pain caught the physician in the chest at the Vulcan’s gentleness, so much in contrast to the strength he possessed. _I’ve seen that gentleness before, Spock. When he came sweeping in, alive and well. If Christine and I hadn’t been there, you would’ve done a hell of a lot more than hang onto his shoulders for a minute. Your shields were low enough for your feelings to push your body around for a change… and I think Jim would have been brave enough to hold back_! Mind full with the war that Spock constantly waged with himself, McCoy even let the latest scans slide in favor of visiting.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the sort chapter - I'm trying to break up the longer work and the size is uneven.

Shifts rotated nine times before activities aboard the Enterprise quieted enough for McCoy to take his findings to Jim. Making his way to the observation deck, the doctor shook his head at exactly how much could occur in three “days” in space (even without a sunrise, he’d never broken the Earth-bound habit of dividing time into nights and days). Routine maintenance had caused some sort of conflict between the emergency lights and the ship’s true lighting; some decks had looked like a disco that McCoy had seen once in a twentieth-century film. On top of that, a careless crewmember had set the vents in the botany labs blowing outward, so that pollen and spores had been distributed throughout parts of the ship. He’d had his hands full distributing allergy hypos and quarantining crewmembers who had taken especially high doses of alien pollen. Enterprise personnel had a poor track record when it came to crew-plant interactions. The beast in Spock’s quarters had been on his mind, of course, but there simply hadn’t been a free moment to talk to Jim. The cat could be mentioned in passing, but his other conclusions might be harder to digest – and he wanted to be around in case his superior officer started to panic.

Brandy poured, viewscreen adorned with a simulation of stars visible from Earth, he updated Kirk and watched his face for signs of shock. To his disappointment, the captain merely smiled and acted as though the recovery of the cat was nothing out of the ordinary. “You know how fiercely loyal Spock is, Bones.” _Even more so after the events of Vulcan_ , he thought. The fear that he had done him harm had caused Spock to become even more protective of his person than usual. “He probably saw the sale of the scruffy thing as some kind of slight to my family honor.”

“And you don’t find it at all odd that in his off hours your Science Officer is searching your name on the data nets?” It was difficult to leave an insult off of the end. Jim Kirk was an intelligent man; surely he could see that the situation was abnormal.

Kirk just shrugged. “He probably thinks of it as part of his job.”

McCoy made an exasperated sound that was all consonants. “Jim, you didn’t see him with it. You didn’t see the way his hands moved. He was _petting_ it. Spock! A Vulcan!” _Using it as a surrogate form of touch, as something he’s allowed to touch,_ he added in his mind. “And it has your name on it!” _He wants **you** to touch **him,** you idiot_!

Kirk was lost in thought, but the avenue of his mental wanderings proved not to intersect with the roads McCoy had already traveled down. “You know, he liked that cat that our time traveling friend had. Isis.”

_A cat is not what he needs_ , Bones thought, mind swerving away from the cruder term at the last possible second. “Jim, I didn’t mean,”

The captain cut him off. “But you’ve suggested it before. We can make it crew wide of course – Spock would never go for anything that singled him out. And we’ll have to draw up some regulations, too. No pets above a certain size. Nothing allowed in the labs. Only so many animals per deck. They’ve engineered non-shedding pets now. It would be good for morale.”

Bones gaped, aghast at just what he’d wrought. _I wanted you to realize that your best friend has touchy-feely feelings for you – not turn Enterprise into a petting zoo_! He kept the words behind his lips.

Jim looked positively pleased with himself as he playfully punched his friend in the shoulder. “Next shore leave, Bones, I’m getting Spock a cat.”

To be continued!


	3. Chapter 3

One thing that you could say for Captain James Tiberius Kirk, Bones thought, he was as good as his word.

Six weeks after their observation deck conversation (in which Jim remained as dense as the densest of neutron stars), he appeared outside of Spock’s quarters with a gold-and-caramel furball with pink toes, a pink nose, pink inner ears, and a patch of white fluff lining his throat. A kitten became the first official animal of the _Enterprise_.

McCoy held his breath throughout the exchange. He expected Spock to cite regulations or to turn green with embarrassment, to demand to know just why Kirk had imagined he could want such a thing, to refuse and insist the kitten be packed into an escape pod and landed on the nearest life-sustaining planet. Instead, he accepted the drowsy catling, wide eyes watching as it clambered from Kirk’s warm hands into his own. If it would not have been sheer madness to do so, McCoy would have nominated the little feline for a medal of bravery. The first thing it did in its life aboardship was to snuggle into Spock’s uniformed chest, close its eyes, purr, and fall asleep.

“He knows he’s your cat, Spock,” Kirk announced, pleased at the union. “What are you going to call him?”

“Tiberius.” McCoy’s jaw went rocket-firing toward the deck.

***

Tiberius proved a welcome addition to the _Enterprise_ crew. The human need to touch fuzzy and adorable things pushed crewmembers who had always been intimidated by Commander Spock to approach him. Spock (ever gifted at pretending to be oblivious to the effect he could have on junior officers) graciously responded to inquiries regarding his four-legged companion and even accepted “peace offerings” in the form of cat treats and cat toys, leading McCoy to joke about _Enterprise_ ’s new diplomat. Kirk shushed him whenever he tried to comment on Tiberius’s ability to foster relationships between the Vulcan and the rest of the crew; the Captain didn’t want Spock to overhear and be hurt. (It was a worry that Spock would have cited as illogical but Kirk had always believed that his First Officer had suffered slights enough as a child of two worlds).

At first, cat lovers were forced to greet Tiberius on deck 5 – in or just outside of Spock’s quarters. By his third week aboard, the gold and caramel furball had taken to following his owner about the ship. Spock initially discouraged such behavior, but Kirk just laughed at his concern. “Keep him out of Engineering and away from the transporter,” he told his friend. “And make sure he’s out of the way of operations if he makes it onto the Bridge. Otherwise, what can he hurt?”

He would never have admitted it to his friend, but there was something strangely comforting about seeing the tiny cat come trotting after the Vulcan with his long strides, something positively endearing about seeing those long-fingered hands alight on the orange fur. (The Bridge crew agreed; Kirk had seen Uhura positively cooing at the sight of the cat in Spock’s lap, and Sulu and Chekov had been the first to assure Tiberius of his safety the first time they went to warp speed).

The tiny cat even changed the nature of Kirk’s quarters. Reading one night, he heard a positively demanding meow come from the bathroom. Abandoning his volume of military history, he opened the door to find… nothing. Opening the bathroom door that led to Spock’s quarters, he peeked out. “Spock? Everything okay? Whoa!”

Tiberius went flying past his feet, half-spinning him around in the process. The Vulcan followed the cat, swooping him up even as he made a nest of a blanket that Kirk kept folded at the bottom of the bed. “I apologize, Captain. He seems to have developed a curiosity regarding your quarters.”

Kirk stifled a laugh at the pink-nosed face staring up into Spock’s. When Spock instructed the kitten in proper behavior (he was to stay in Spock’s room unless accompanied by the Vulcan) it answered him in a series of sassy yowls that reminded Kirk of a kid with his hand in the cookie jar – red-handed, but insisting that he’d done nothing wrong.

“It’s okay, Spock. I’ll leave the door cracked. He can come adventure around if he wants to.” He reached out, stroked the caramel patterning on the kitten’s head. “Far be it for me to halt such appropriate Starfleet behavior. He’s just trying to ‘boldly go where no cat has gone before.’”

“Captain, I have reason to believe that I will never quite understand your affinity for turning our mission statement into a joke.”

Kirk just beamed at him. “At least you recognized it was one. Pretty soon no one onboard is going to believe that innocent-Vulcan-with-no-understanding-of-human-phrases-or-customs act that you put on.”

Lacking a retort, Spock merely lifted an eyebrow at him and released Tiberius to his explorations. “If he begins to bother you, you may return him at your leisure, Captain.” Kirk returned to his book, laughing to himself when he pondered the fate of the furry explorer learning the ins and outs of his abode. Could a cat be made to see the benefits of a life of logic? From that night on, Tiberius was a cat of two realms, happily coming and going between the Captain’s room and that of the First Officer.

To be continued!


	4. Chapter 4

The only person not content with Kirk’s creative response to Spock’s rescue of the posed and stuffed mountain lion was Dr. Leonard McCoy, who, in the weeks since Tiberius joined the crew, found himself continually shaking his head in disbelief and wondering if it was possible to synthesize a chemical that would cure pure, sheer obliviousness. When his medical training offered no answers, he decided on a more organic approach. The doctor wanted to approach Spock, but he knew that it was impossible. Even if the Vulcan allowed him to speak, he feared Spock’s reaction if he confronted him with feelings that years of training would have taught him to fight. Spock would not show panic, of course, but McCoy suspected that such a powerful emotion would find a way to manifest itself. And Spock was very, very strong. Space was enough of a trial without a black eye. Denied one avenue of approach, he turned his booted feet toward Kirk’s door.

Crossing the threshold, McCoy barely avoided rolling his eyes. There was Kirk – surrounded by PADDs and by data chips and by cups that might once have held something masquerading as tea – and across his lap was his namesake, looking for all intents and purposes like he was reading along with the Captain. “Spending time with your familiar, I see.”

Kirk wasn’t even listening. “Hmmm?”

“You’ve gotten awfully friendly with that cat.”

The captain gently knuckled the kitten’s soft head. “He’s got my name, after all.”

_The name that Spock wants_? McCoy thought, a gleam coming into his eyes. “Still think there’s nothing to that, do you?”

Kirk shot him a look over the edge of the report he was skimming. “You obviously don’t. That stubborn streak of yours is going to get you into trouble someday, doctor.”

McCoy recognized the warning to leave off, but it was too playfully couched for him to actually heed it. Pretending to take it, he then pretended to notice the lack of barriers between Kirk’s quarters and those of his Vulcan Commander. “Cozy.”

The remark won him a dark look. “It’s for the furball. So he can get back and forth.”

“Makes for a more expansive view, too.” He could just imagine Spock calculating the probability that Jim would be emerging from the shower, and then fighting his inclination to watch droplets of water run down the Terran’s strong back.

“View?”

“Look, Captain. I’ve seen you face down just about every form of life we know of – and a few unknown outside of this ship’s databanks. Save your lies for them. Those too-innocent eyes won’t work on me.”

If Kirk knew, then McCoy’s method should have worked. The Captain of the _Enterprise_ hated to be called out. But if Kirk was still lying to himself …

Surprised to find it so, McCoy dared to say too much. “You don’t watch him then? He wants you to, though I doubt he admits it even to himself.”

In that moment of revelation, all the gold in Kirk’s expressive eyes hardened and paled. Emotion flooded the shining orbs, drowning all of their darkness in violence. Without looking behind him, Kirk flung the door between their quarters closed. The newborn tightness in his muscles extended to his jaw and he opened his mouth with effort. “What are you saying?”

“You _know_ what I’m saying. You knew it when we came back from Vulcan!” His voice softened. “The rest of us knew it down there, watching him when your body went still.”

The captain was very pale. “And why…” He mastered his voice. “Why tell me? Why tell me now?”

Something very like sympathy moved through the physician’s eyes. “Because I _am_ a doctor, Jim. I’m not made to sit on my hands and watch someone suffer.”

“And you think Spock’s suffering?” His voice dove down, became half a whisper. “Because of _me_?”

“I think he’s lonely,” McCoy clarified; Kirk looked entirely too stricken at the thought that suffering was going on. “And while a cat is a nice enough companion, you have better to offer on hand.” Kirk saw the way McCoy was looking at him, saw the eyes of a friend looking out of the physician’s face.

“This isn’t just about Spock,” he realized aloud.

“No. And I knew about _you_ long before Vulcan came into the picture. Subtlety is not your great gift, Captain.”

Heat flashed into Kirk’s face. “You’re just up on the Bridge too damn much,” he muttered.

“Are you angry that I told you?” If Kirk was, McCoy was ready to point out that he had tried subtlety – it just hadn’t worked.

“Angry at you for doing your job? That wouldn’t be logical, Bones.”

The physician shook his head at him. “Don’t even start that nonsense. Leave it to your other hobgoblin half.”

Kirk smiled at that. “Since you’ve started this mess, do you have any ideas about how I should approach him? You know how jumpy Spock can be when it comes to emotion.”

Pondering, McCoy glanced around the room and noticed the kitten perched atop a pile of covers on Kirk’s bed. “Well, you do have an envoy…”

To be continued!


	5. Chapter 5

Returning to his quarters, Spock instantly marked a change.

It was not exactly illogical that some crewmember should have fashioned a handsome collar about Tiberius’s neck, though it was unexpected. Stroking the caramel-colored cat’s delicate head, Spock set his deft fingers to removing the apparatus. His head tilted slightly in surprise when his fingers brushed against something that made a distinct, rustling sound. 

It was paper – actual paper, made from the fibrous parts of plants.

The Vulcan’s expansive memory sought to match the product to its source and decided by texture and weight that this particular square of writing paper was Terran in origin. Unfolding it, Spock noted that it was also high quality, pale gold instead of white, and covered in handwriting that he had seen many times before, on PADDs, at the bottom of commendations, and on every executive order that originated onboard the starship Enterprise.

“My dear friend,” the missive began, “it is not only fog that may travel on ‘little cat feet.’”

Circuits lit up inside the Vulcan’s brain. Earth literature had not been one of his focuses while at Starfleet Academy. On beginning to serve under Captain Kirk, he had swiftly added the subject to his independent studies. Kirk was widely read and valued the beauty of old phrases and the wisdom of books old and young. And though Spock would never admit it, he had quickly gotten tired of not knowing what Kirk was referring to when he alluded to some favorite work. What did it mean that his Captain was sending him a letter on actual paper and beginning it with an allusion to a nineteenth-century poet?

Tiberius sat looking up at him with eyes that were as golden as the rest of him, his ears cocked slightly as if waiting for something. Spock rubbed his white chin and failed to avoid the cold kiss of his little wet nose. The cat rubbed his face against the Vulcan’s hand insistently; if Spock had been given to anthropomorphism, he would have concluded that Tiberius was insisting that he read on. Without giving into such human follies, he read on. “And so my chosen messenger is a feline one,” Kirk continued. “He has my name and your affection, so he may be best appointed to carry these words. If they are words you would not hear, then I ask you to remember that they remain unspoken and to destroy this note and forgive my foolishness in writing it. I hope that no other sanction will be needed and that our friendship will remain.”

Spock looked away from the note, puzzled. Accustomed to thinking moves ahead in life as well as in chess, he strove to imagine what it was that Kirk was trying to convey, what it was that could make the usually impulsive captain so cautious in his language. And what could damage a friendship such as theirs? His eyes noticed the great beast that he had rescued. Had Kirk learned that he had it in his possession? Did its presence in his chambers merit some form of emotional response? And why was his mind entertaining such questions when the answer was sure to be found in the next paragraph?

“I care about you deeply,” Kirk had written next. “I have reason to believe that you might feel the same. I know less of Vulcan courtship than I would, but I believe that I can be instructed – that I can be the kind of partner that you would wish. You will find it very human of me, I suspect, but, Spock, my friend, I very much wish to make you happy.” Only a few more words followed and Spock ignored the fact that his hands were shaking as he read them. “I eagerly await your reply,” the captain had concluded, followed by the flourish of his signature.

The Vulcan stood very still for several minutes, shifting from this new pose only when Tiberius’s delicate (but very sharp) claws appeared as he batted at Kirk’s message. Spock held the paper out of reach, turned to his desk, and began to craft an answer in the remaining space.

 

To be continued!


	6. Chapter 6

Hearing Kirk in his quarters, Tiberius trotted there to greet him with a series of conversational yowls and high hopes for kitty treats. Seeing the refolded note in his collar, Kirk felt his heart sink down almost to his shoes. Still, he was the captain of the best ship in the fleet; he wasn’t about to shy away from this – even if it was sure to leave a scar right across his heart.

“Captain,” the Vulcan had written, “I find the feline messenger that you have chosen a substandard form of communication, but I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter with you at your convenience.”

 _Damn_.

Swallowing hard, he took a step toward the Vulcan’s quarters; the doors between them remained open for Tiberius’s sake. “Spock?” he called, half-wishing that his first officer would not answer.

“Yes, Captain?”

The formal title made him grit his teeth; his confession had clearly gone and scared Spock right back into the relationship they’d had in their earliest days onboard the _Enterprise_. He took another few steps. “May I speak to you?”

“Certainly,” came the cool and formal answer.

“Spock, look,” he began, finally coming into the Vulcan’s rooms, “I’m not ashamed to say that I’m shaking in my shoes a bit here,”

“Human emotions can be quite powerful,” the Vulcan interrupted.

Jim gaped at him. Spock was sitting on the floor beneath the shade of the great golden beast he had rescued. Though covered in blankets, the Vulcan was bare-chested and his eyes were very dark. “ _Howling comets, Spock_!” the captain swore, voice low and harsh with a desire he wished that he could hide. “If you’re going to turn a man down, you could at least wear clothes to do it!”

“You have mistaken my intentions, Captain. Will you not sit down with me and discuss your note?”

Jim thought about hesitating, but the longer he stood staring at a half-naked Vulcan (was Spock wearing anything _under_ those blankets?) the more he worried about his friend _seeing_ his desire instead of just hearing it in his voice. Starfleet-issue pants weren’t exactly loose. “O-okay.” Taking a seat (and tossing the edge of a blanket over his lap just for insurance) he gestured for Spock to begin. “I don’t know what to say, Spock.”

The Vulcan’s eyes laughed gently at him for long moments. “Perhaps, t’hy’la, speech is not what is needed at this moment.”

They made love in the warm, red cavern of Spock’s room, and the shadow of the mountain lion mount dappled their bodies as they surged against one another. Before it was over, Spock joined their minds and Jim knew that neither he nor Spock would ever be lonely again.

When they lay back against the blankets, panting, Jim returned to one of the images he had seen in the mind of his new lover. “Spock, was this great big cat really part of some sort of romantic chess game?” He reached up and stroked over the creature’s tawny throat.

The Vulcan did not give a low, rumbling chuckle, but Jim felt as though he had. “You have played chess with me many times, Captain. My skills were quite equal to the task.”

Jim laughed. “So, you bought this thing in order to set things in motion between us?”

“I bought it because it belonged to your family and I did not think it should go to some unknown and distant admirer.”

“Not when a local one was at hand?”

Spock ignored him. “I thought that it might pique your interest and perhaps afford me the opportunity to express my feelings. I admit that I did not anticipate your gift of Tiberius.”

Kirk grew concerned. “You don’t like him?”

“He has become a welcome part of my life, Jim.”

“We’ll have to get him a friend,” said the captain. “Now that I’ll be taking up all of your time.”

The kitten seemed to sense that he was being discussed and bounded in to nuzzle beneath Kirk’s chin with a “meow-yow-yow.”

“He seems to concur with your decision, Jim.”

Soon the kitten was drowsing against Kirk’s chest and Kirk was dozing against the base of the mountain lion. Spock, contented with the current state of his world, ran his fingers over the golden head of his human mate and made a deep, contented sound that was almost a purr.

 

End!


End file.
